  Fantasy
This week: Fear Edited by: Robert Waltz  
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The key to change... is to let go of fear.
-Roseanne Cash
What we seek we shall find; what we flee from flees from us.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
Love is what we were born with. Fear is what we learned here.
-(Unknown) |
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Fear
Today, I want to talk about fear.
No, you're not reading the Horror/Scary newsletter. Almost all writing requires the use of emotion to keep the reader's attention, including (perhaps especially) fantasy and science fiction.
Writing is about communication, and communication happens when two people - in this case, author and reader - find common ground. One way to find common ground is to appeal to emotion. Emotions are basic to the human condition, and studies show that other animals and even plants can feel emotion to one degree or another. We may not always understand the emotion, but we can see the results.
As writers, our job is, in part, to engage our readers' emotions, and one of the most primal, raw emotions is fear.
Part of writing - and I'm going to assume stories, here, not poems, which require even more emotional engagement - involves building, then releasing tension, usually repeatedly, until at the end of the story, all (or almost all) of the tension has been resolved. And one of the great, time-tested ways to build tension is to appeal to the emotion of fear.
I knew someone once who read the book A Course In Miracles. Now, I've never read the book, and from what little I know about it I'm not interested, but one thing my acquaintance took from that book is that there are, at base, only two emotions: love and fear. All other emotions, she asserted, are a kind of riff on those two, a combination or a different level thereof. Thus, jealousy and anger can be interpreted as types of fear; happiness is a form of love.
The problem for writers is that love is boring.
I don't mean the experience of it, of course; love is pretty cool in general. But it doesn't do much for a story. "But what about romances," you may ask - well, romances generally chart the course of a budding relationship; as such, they chronicle the doubts and missteps along the road to love; love is, itself, present in the story, but the plot of the story is about other things, including, very likely, fear (for instance, fear that the other person doesn't return the protagonist's love.) And at the end of the romance, all the fears are resolved, settled, vanished or relegated to background, and the implication is that they live "happily ever after." (Which even as a child I found unsettling; don't they die at some point? And usually not simultaneously. That, I reasoned, sucks.)
But along the way, the reader needs to feel some level of fear for the protagonist(s). That involves, first, getting the reader to identify with the protagonist; and, second, putting him or her into situations that evoke emotion. Perhaps she has a goal: the fear is that the goal will not be reached. Perhaps he has a love interest: the fear is that the love interest will be indifferent.
How do we communicate fear, then? Especially when, in speculative fiction, the characters can get into situations that the readers never will, on other worlds or among strange characters.
Well, here's how you don't do it: "John, frightened, ran from the apparition." That's telling, not showing, and the response is a resounding "meh."
There's two aspects to this: the internal and the external. Internal: "John's heart pounded as the diaphanous form coalesced. He opened his mouth, but his throat closed up, refusing to let out a scream." External: "John backed away from the creature, eyes wide. His foot slid on Jenny's blood and he fell backwards, his mouth agape. His feet kicked against the steel panels as his hands propelled him backwards." (Yeah, I know, you can do better; these are just examples.)
Of course, one of the best ways to move the plot along and engage in character development is to have the character overcome her or his fear. In the example above, John could find a door and scramble through it, bolting it behind him, but that only delays the inevitable. Eventually, he has to fight the creature, or talk to it, or learn to coexist: all of which require courage, though of different sorts.
Or the fear doesn't even have to be rational; a character can be put in a situation where he or she has to deal with a phobia.
I didn't see the recent Green Lantern movie (I've heard it's pretty terrible, but as a comics fan from way back I'm going to have to watch it sometime, perhaps when it's available over the internet), but one of the stated character attributes of Hal Jordan, the original (well, not the original original, but we'll go with that for this discussion) Green Lantern, is that he had no fear.
And that doesn't work. See, someone without fear wouldn't react appropriately to a threat, and readers can't relate to that very well. The character was, rather, exceptionally good at facing his fears. While it was established that Jordan's ring would protect him from most harm, Green Lantern wasn't about some dude who encased himself in a green shell whenever some bad guy came blasting for him. No, he'd face the danger head-on. And we relate to it because that's the kind of person we'd like to be (not to mention, I'd love an energy ring.)
Fear is human. Facing it is transcendent. Readers eat that stuff up.
Oh, one more thing: fear is, at its core, a response to a threat, real or imagined, to something or someone that you love.
So you see, there isn't love and fear. There's only love.
Keep that in mind when you put your next character into a metaphorical wringer. |
Fearsome writings from the fantasy world:
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Last time, in "Fantasy Newsletter (June 8, 2011)" , I talked about incorporating games into works of fiction.
Sticktalker  : Robert, Loved the game article. In a three act play set in 57 BC in the Roman Republic, I had my characters play "bones" which is kinda like dice, but played with sheep's knuckle bones. It took an amazing amount of research to find out the basics of throwing bones...but the bottom line was despite the resemblance to dice the rules were different...so much no source I could find ever managed to explain how bets were made (i.e. win on snake eyes or a seven on the first roll) so I had them score cumulative points with individual bets on the total score of the five bones thrown in five "rounds", or side bets on a single throw total. The gambling was one of the key elements in the play. I just wonder if it carried off as being realistic.
-- Lyle
Seems plausible, I suppose. The important thing is if it advances the part or illuminates character. People are willing to overlook an implausible scenario if it works within the context of the story.
Jeff  : Great NL this week, Robert! I'm fascinated by the concept of games (both playing/creating games in real life, and those that are created by writers for their fictional worlds). Developing them can often be a delicate balance between too little and too much information, and I agree that in most cases, unless the dynamics of playing the game are integral to the story, a game name, who won, and some minor details are often all you need to create something unique without bogging down the story. 
Thanks! I think games were probably devised early on in human development. I envision a couple of cavepeople seeing whose wheel could roll the farthest.
LJPC - the tortoise  : Hi Robert!
I'm glad you enjoyed England and are currently resting your arms. 
I think the reason games aren't used so much in fantasy/Sf is because many who read these genres are already gamers. Perhaps they're taking a gaming break, looking for something exciting and different. Your NL was interesting and insightful as always. Thanks! 
--Laura
That would imply that we need a break from gaming, assuming facts not in evidence. I mean... a "break"? From gaming? That's crazy talk.
Crys-not really here  : Great point, Waltz! I had never thought about incorporating a game in one of my stories, but it makes sense and I can see how it could enhance the characters and setting.
Some stories are all about the games - not often in the fantasy genre (though a couple of Piers Anthony stories come to mind), but a game story can work as a metaphor for overcoming obstacles.
Satuawany : Awesome reminder! *makesnotesinnoveloutline*
You take notes? Wow.
And that's all for me for this month - until next time, be courageous and
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Fantasy: July 06, 2011 Issue [#4488]
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